Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Heidi and Chloe got out of school on Wednesday, June 2, and used the rest of the week and weekend to pack for their trip to Ottawa, to spend time with their siblings, Holly and Ben.

They flew out first thing on the Monday morning for their three week visit.

Rich and I flew out the next evening, for our trip to Italy, which I will be starting a new blog for soon...

Rich and I were gone for two weeks, came home on a Wednesday night, and the following Monday morning, all four of my kids flew here from Ottawa.

Usually the only time I get to see Holly and Ben is at Christmas time, when they fly in for a week or so.
At that time of year though, there are nine of us in the house, which means lots of cooking and cleaning for me, and lots going on at any given moment- translating into very little time to spend visiting and talking with my kids.

So this year, we planned for Holly and Ben to come and stay for a week when it WASN'T a family holiday...

We had SUCH a good time! We shopped off and on, we talked, we worked in my studio... all of my kids are artistic, and they enjoyed spending time creating things.

The kids had a day at Elitch Gardens, the amusement park in Denver, and Rich and I took them to the Colorado Renaissance Festival over the weekend. Despite the rain we got in the afternoon, it was a fun day.

We celebrated Canada Day with a nice steak dinner and poppers that we bought at the store. We were at the Renaissance Festival on the fourth- we came home and grilled burgers (with homemade fries too, of course!), and then the kids had fun setting off the fireworks that Rich had bought for them. What a guy, that Rich. He's a keeper!

They all walked up to get ice cream a number of times from Baskin-Robbins, where Heidi works. They bought copious amounts of Ben & Jerry's ice cream for home, as we have flavours here that they can't get in Canada.

There was lots of Beatles Rock Band, lots of ice cream eating, lots of laughing and teasing, lots of joy in us all being together as a family again.

Last night we had to take them to the airport to return home to real life- and NOT, as Holly hilariously pointed out to me, the G-rated version of their lives that they were living while Heidi and Chloe were there... lol